Kesha Walks ‘Fine Line Between Genius and Crazy’ as She Leaks Teaser Snippets of Two New Tracks
The singer shared a SoundCloud link to two new songs that will expire when her Instagram Story does
Soundcloud user Kesha19523 has less than 400 followers, but the two uploads to the account – songs titled “Eat the Acid” and “Fine Line” – have racked up a combined 20,000 streams in the past seven hours. On Instagram late last night, Kesha linked out to the page, writing: “Can’t sleep rn, link expires when this story expires.”
The clock is ticking, but at the rate the streams are increasing, it won’t be a shock when the two snippets make their way through the fandom pipeline on Twitter and TikTok. The link may disappear, but the first introduction to Kesha’s latest musical era will be woven into internet permeance. She’s ready for it.
“There’s a fine line that I’m walking/I’m trying to balance, it’s exhausting/This is where you fuckers pushed me/Don’t be surprised if shit gets ugly,” Kesha sings on “Fine Line,” with the snippet coming in at just over a minute in length. “All the doctors and lawyers cut the tongue out of my mouth/I’ve been hiding my anger, but bitch look at me now/I’m at the top of the mountain with a gun to my head/Am I bigger than Jesus or better off dead?/There’s a fine line between genius and crazy.”
On “Eat the Acid,” the shorter of the two previews, Kesha’s voice is warped with auto-tune. “You said that the universe is magic/Just open up your eyes, the signs are waiting,” she sings. “You said don’t ever eat the acid if you don’t want to be changed like you changed me.”
Kesha’s last full-length musical release, High Road, arrived in 2020 as a follow-up to 2017’s Rainbow. The two snippets follow a similar thematic thread as a song the singer teased during an Instagram Live earlier this year, expressing frustration between her reality and the stories being fed to her.
“I’m about to blow your fucking head through the ceiling/ I’m getting sued ’cause my mom has been tweeting/ Don’t fucking tell me that I’m dealing with reason,” she sang in a snippet playing in the back of the video. It recounted an instance in which her mother, Pebe Sebert, was sued by Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald for defamation, though it was later dismissed.
Gottwald first sued Kesha in New York in October 2014, the same day she filed a suit in Los Angeles. She alleged that the music producer knocked her out with an unknown substance and raped her during an extended period of alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. His suit alleged defamation with the intent of securing a better recording contract. When Kesha moved her claims to New York, they were dismissed largely on the grounds that they were too old, while Dr. Luke’s suit remained intact.
Dr. Luke’s years-long defamation lawsuit against Kesha will finally go to trial in July.
From Rolling Stone US.